Gandhi My Father

Most families have skeletons in the cupboard and black sheep in their midst and when people become famous, these closeted secrets are discovered or reveal themselves. One thinks of the troublesome children shaped by the coldness and parental neglect of Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, the embarrassing brothers of Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton or, on a more endearing note, that likable clown Terry Major-Ball, who helped humanise his brother John's term at Number 10.

One of the most revealing and courageous movies ever to come out of India, Feroz Abbas Khan's Gandhi My Father tells the extraordinary story of the relationship between Mahatma Gandhi (Darshan Jariwala) and his eldest son, Harilal (Akshaye Khanna). It will be an eye-opener to those whose knowledge of the Mahatma is limited to Richard Attenborough's epic biopic.

The movie begins in June 1948, a few weeks after Gandhi's assassination. A terminally ill, drunken, dirty, heavily bearded man is picked up in the streets of Bombay and gives his father's name as Gandhi. The officials at the paupers' hospital think he's referring to the nation's father, but he is in fact Harilal Gandhi.

The film is told in flashback, starting in 1906. The handsome Harilal (played by a Bollywood matinee idol) was left in India when his father went off to establish a law practice in South Africa and become a political leader and advocate of passive resistance and civil disobedience. Hari marries Gulab (Bhumika Chawla, Bollywood's answer to Scarlett Johansson), but is separated from her when summoned to join his family in Durban.

He hopes to emulate his father and read for the Bar in London, but the Mahatma, who sees family ties as inimical to his mission, denies him both his love and the formal education that would set him free. Sacrificing the boy to his principles, Gandhi sends him into battle against the oppressive South African authorities.

Hari's confidence and self-respect are permanently undermined, despite the attention and intervention of his devoted mother (a great performance from Shefali Shah). Nothing improves when the family return to India. While Gandhi's reputation and influence steadily grow, Hari's morale sinks as he tries to impress his father. His business schemes fail, he takes to drink, is convicted of fraud and his wife leaves him with their children. Forever stumbling, trying to pick himself up and seeking forgiveness, Hari is lured into becoming a Muslim, reverts to Hinduism and is finally disowned by his parents.

This heartbreaking story unfolds against a backdrop of great historical events, some conveyed through monochrome newsreel material. The film's general effect is not to diminish the Mahatma's reputation or to stick ugly warts on a familiar hagiographic portrait. It's to make him more human and vulnerable and to explain the high price paid by him and his wife when he decided to sacrifice himself to the political, social and spiritual liberation of his people. The movie has some rough edges, but it affected me as powerfully as anything I've seen this past couple of years.